Is Glenn Greenwald's partner a terrorist?

[RedFury]

@Ibn_Warraq

Huh?

I’m not sure how I disagree with you on this thread.

I thought the treatment of Miranda was disgusting and said so.

Did you think I was referring to something else?

Apologies. Your post was rather cryptic and I misread its target.

But now I’m at a quandary. Since it appears we agree…should I revise my position?

Be well.

[Marley23]

@RedFury

AFAIK, Glenn Greenwald is an American citizen in good standing in the UK – meanwhile, he is being demonized by powerful sectors of the US Govt & media. So who do you think wants to get their hands on him more?

He has also reported on the activities of the British government and he works for the U.S. division of a British publication. So no, it’s not that hard to understand why the British government might overdo things of their own volition here.

[Werekoala]

@Tom_Tildrum

That’s how I read it as well. That’s why I thought that what happened appears to have been legal. My question was aimed more at whether it was just.

Since when are those one in the same?

Anything that is not allowed is forbidden. This was allowed, therefore not forbidden. “Just” plays no role in it.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Bryan_Ekers

I’m not clear on the linkage between “Snowden” and “terrorist” in general. Seems like a reach to me.

The law in question is part of an “Anti-Terrorism Act” and was presumably presented to Parliament and the public as an anti-terrorism measure, but as RNATB noted, this section does not require any connection to terrorism. British police can detain anyone who is in a British airport for the purpose of getting on or off an airplane, for up to nine hours, and confiscate their effects for up to a week.

[PBear42]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

By its own terms, Schedule 7 does not appear to apply solely to suspected terrorists.

With respect, I think this is a misreading. You quoted Section 2(4) of Schedule 7 (your link). It says an officer initiating the procedure doesn’t need grounds for suspecting the person of interest is a terrorist. The point of the procedure, though, very definitely is to establish whether he is one. See Section 2(1): “An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b).” Notably, section 40(1)(b) of the Terrorism Act of 2000 defines a terrorist as “a person who … is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” Terrorism is defined in Section 1 of the Act and includes several things, but possession of classified information isn’t one of them.

[BrokenBriton]

@PBear42

With respect, I think this is a misreading. You quoted Section 2(4) of Schedule 7 (your link). It says an officer initiating the procedure doesn’t need grounds for suspecting the person of interest is a terrorist. The point of the procedure, though, very definitely is to establish whether he is one.

I don’t think that’s right.

If you consider the stats on S7 in the context of internal UK politics, it strongly suggests the main purpose is to tighten previously ridiculously lax rules on international students; international study is now an important industry for the UK. The ease of entry for people purporting to be students has long been targetted by illegal immigration gangs:

According to his most recent review, he found schedule 7 was used on 61,145 people in 2012-13 - 12% down on the previous year, and 30% down on 2009-10.

The majority of those examinations lasted less than 15 minutes, and the Home Office says more than 97% of examinations last less than an hour.

There were only 24 terrorism-related arrests after schedule 7 examinations in 2011-12 - 0.03% of those examined.

The idea of S7 was to send a message to the gangs and to individuals that things had changed.

[Magiver]

@Tom_Tildrum

Is Glenn Greenwald’s partner a terrorist?

I don’t think so but the question I would ask is this:
If Snowden committed a crime by distributing the documents doesn’t that make anyone else who handles them a criminal also?

If this is the case then it should be prosecuted as theft or consipiracy and not terrorism.

[Grumman]

@Magiver

I don’t think so but the question I would ask is this:
If Snowden committed a crime by distributing the documents doesn’t that make anyone else who handles them a criminal also?

Absolutely not. As with the Pentagon Papers, the government cannot simply declare disclosure of their wrongdoing taboo.

[Magiver]

@Grumman

Absolutely not. As with the Pentagon Papers, the government cannot simply declare disclosure of their wrongdoing taboo.

Is there a trial regarding the wrongdoing?

[Grumman]

@Magiver

Is there a trial regarding the wrongdoing?

There’s a trial regarding the redistribution of classified documents: New York Times Co. v. United States.

[tagos]

@Tom_Tildrum

The law in question is part of an “Anti-Terrorism Act” and was presumably presented to Parliament and the public as an anti-terrorism measure, but as RNATB noted, this section does not require any connection to terrorism. British police can detain anyone who is in a British airport for the purpose of getting on or off an airplane, for up to nine hours, and confiscate their effects for up to a week.

Which makes it a classic abuse of power by the State. These laws were passed to give police powers to tackle terrorist threats. They were not intended an neither should thay be used as a tool to harass and intimidate journalists or to give the authorites the chance to question people outside of normal safeguards.

This is simply a shocking abuse of power by this government and as the USA was informed beforehand of the intention, condoned at the highest levels of the UK Govt. At the very least the Home Secretary would have consented.

More info

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to detain anyone at the UK’s borders without any requirement to show probable cause and hold them for up to nine hours, without seeking further justification. The detainee must respond to any questions, regardless of whether a lawyer is present and there is no automatic provision of a lawyer. It is a criminal offence for the detainee to refuse to answer questions - regardless of the grounds for that refusal or otherwise fully cooperate with the police.

**According to the advice published by the Association of Chief Police Officers’, Schedule 7 should only be used to counter terrorism and may not be used for any other purpose.

**
A similarly over-broad and vague section of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allowed stop and search without any grounds was held to be unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights in 2010. Section 44 - as it was known - violated Article 8 of the European Charter of Human Rights which protects privacy.

[filmstar-en]

Ah yes, Section 44.

That was used extensively by the police to try to stop people taking photographs in public places.

http://photographernotaterrorist.org/2010/07/section-44-suspended/

The UK has seen many cases of the abuse of powers intended for use against terrorism.

All kinds of public authorities were using them for trivial purposes: catching people dumping rubbish, spying on parents, see if they really lived at the address they claimed so they can send their kids to a popular school.

After terrorist outrages, the government has to DO something. Often they decide to pass a law to allow the security services to defend the nation against this threat.

So you get ill thought out legislation that compromises the freedoms that make a civil society.

It takes a number of years for legislative process to examine, test and reform these laws. Basically taking back the powers that the government of the day has grabbed for itself during an emergency.

I believe the same process has happened in the US with the notorious Patriot Act.

[clairobscur]

@Richard_Parker

Comparing it to police states seems quite exaggerated to me.

Well…my opinion is that when the actions are the same, the comparison is warranted. Even if they’re not as widespread, what do you do when you happen to be on the receiving end? What is good for the goose is good for the gander, so what is legitimate for an Iranian dissenter is also legitimate for an American journalist if they end up in the same situation.

I already said so several times, but I’m convinced that if, when I joined this board, I had described the policies implemented since in the USA and predicted that they would be soon into force, I would have been laughed out of the SDMB and probably be considered as being paranoid, or clueless about the USA, or a troll.

[tagos]

@Bricker

The line was:

Can you point out which words identify this statement as “should” instead of “is?” For example, it’s is a contraction for “it is,” rather than “it should be.”

I’ve got no time for your ‘my side, my side’ legal bullshittery. Go derail some other discussion.

EDITED to add:

Yet again I’m deeply unimpressed by the number of people thinking it’s okay to harass and intimidate journalists by abusing anti-terrorist legislation. I hope I see none of you pounding your ‘USA,USA!’ chests in other threads about ‘freedom’ because you’ve forfeited the right.

[tagos]

Let’s look at what the Metropolitan Police themselves sayabout the Schedule 7 poer.

Q: Why do police stop passengers at ports under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act?

A: Police officers at ports play a key role in countering the current terrorist threat and maintaining national security. They use powers available to them under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and adhere to the Codes of Practice that accompany the legislation. The Code requires that the selection of people stopped reflect an objective assessment of the threat posed by various terrorist groups active in and outside the UK.

Nothing in there about intimidating journalists or impeding them in their aability to perform investigative journalism.

This was political thuggery. And as such I feel very comfortable drawing comparisons with Russia and Iran.

Besides I set the bar for liberty in the UK or the USA way higher than ‘not as bad as Iran’.

A vigorous Third Estate able and willing to expose the actions of powerful entities who want their activities hidden is a fundamental pillar of democracy.

No one who values freedom or democracy should be okay with allowing governments to engage in this sort of behaviour.

IMHO the reaction of the West since 2001 has been hysterical in the extreme and I hate how people seem willing to line up and make a bonfire of hard-won liberties out of fear.

[Gyrate]

Yep, it’s definitely not about intimidating the press.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has written an article about Mr Miranda’s detention and what it means for journalism

He also talks about how he was contacted by a “very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister” who demanded the return or destruction of the Snowden files.

Mr Rusbridger said that after two months of meetings and the threat of court action, two security experts from GCHQ, the UK’s eavesdropping centre, came to the Guardian’s offices to oversee the destruction of computer hard-drives.

He said the security experts oversaw the destruction “just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents”.

“Whitehall was satisfied, but it felt like a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age,” he said.

“We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won’t do it in London.”

A government sources told the BBC the authorities had not “acted like thugs” and had been trying to ensure the material did not fall into the wrong hands.

[tagos]

Okay - my position is clear I hope so I’ll bow out.

Just one final statement of value. I believe that ‘free association’ is also fundamental part of a free society and this includes the ability to organise politically without (referring to longstanding UK police practice) the involvement of deep cover police spies/agent provocateurs. Free Association also involves the ability to communicate with each other without State monitoring and we’re being stampeded towards giving up all privacy and all ability to communicate outside of state monitoring out of fear.

We’re now seeing the thin end of the wedge people feared after 2001 being firmaly hammered in.

If the price of ‘fighting terrorism’ is the wholesale monitoring of our activities then the price is too high.

I believe the NSA program and the UK equivalents should be as heavily constrained as pre-computer age activities were. Nothing anyone says or does electronically should be monitored without a specific warrant. We fought terrorism then and we can fight it now. We don’t protect democracy by destroying its essential underpinnings out of fear.

We’d do a lot more to prevent terrorism if we stopped invading random countries, and blowing up unfortunately placed civilians with drones just because they are near someone Obama has marked for non-judicial execution.

Stop sowing dragon’s teeth and you’ll have fewer dragons to fight.

[Richard_Parker]

@PBear42

Terrorism is defined in Section 1 of the Act and includes several things, but possession of classified information isn’t one of them.

No, but threatening to release classified information in order to get the government to follow your political agenda is, if the release would “endanger a person’s life” of “is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.”

@Grumman

Absolutely not. As with the Pentagon Papers, the government cannot simply declare disclosure of their wrongdoing taboo.

No. The government cannot restrain the distribution of classified information as a matter of First Amendment law. It can and did prosecute Ellsberg, but lost in part out of its deep corruption. But there is no constitutional or legal prohibition on enforcing classified information statutes against journalists who go beyond mere redistribution. There is just a legal norm that they won’t be prosecuted if they follow the customary rules.

@clairobscur

Well…my opinion is that when the actions are the same, the comparison is warranted.

I agree with that opinion, obviously. My dispute is with the premise, as set forth in the post to which you responded.

[Richard_Parker]

Bah. Pre-coffee posting. That should have read “the government cannot exercise prior restraint over the distribution.”

[Bricker]

Ascenray:

Please read this post, and tell me if it’s about what the law is or what the law should be:

@tagos

Let’s look at what the Metropolitan Police themselves sayabout the Schedule 7 poer.

Q: Why do police stop passengers at ports under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act?

A: Police officers at ports play a key role in countering the current terrorist threat and maintaining national security. They use powers available to them under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and adhere to the Codes of Practice that accompany the legislation. The Code requires that the selection of people stopped reflect an objective assessment of the threat posed by various terrorist groups active in and outside the UK.

Nothing in there about intimidating journalists or impeding them in their aability to perform investigative journalism.

This was political thuggery. And as such I feel very comfortable drawing comparisons with Russia and Iran.

Besides I set the bar for liberty in the UK or the USA way higher than ‘not as bad as Iran’.

A vigorous Third Estate able and willing to expose the actions of powerful entities who want their activities hidden is a fundamental pillar of democracy.

No one who values freedom or democracy should be okay with allowing governments to engage in this sort of behaviour.

IMHO the reaction of the West since 2001 has been hysterical in the extreme and I hate how people seem willing to line up and make a bonfire of hard-won liberties out of fear.